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Postcards from Avalidad Season #1 Episode #4

“I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum.”

John Nada, They Live


The morning after the fire… Nakatomi is waiting for the lab results for the strange soft drink: Orgone energy was detected among a regular mix of caffeine, sugar, caramel and spices. It’s clearly an energy drink, but since it contains orgone, could it be marketed as an aphrodisiac drug? After some sips, she decides to call James C and ask him out for lunch, but his Personal Assistant tells her Mr C is in a meeting with Mr Houseman.

Arriving at the office, Aziz gets a call from his good old friend Leon MacAarthur. A blond, muscular and extremely well combed Leo greets him in augmented reality. He smiles dumbly, as always, but looks concerned. The actor and businessman now owns a small Rollerclash team, the Mean Machines, and is worried about the recent incidents. Aziz tells him not to be concerned, ZoneSec is already on it. After getting rid of his friend, Aziz drops by Clayton Reed’s office to talk about the previous night’s events. He feels they have to be more proactive in searching for Lance Jones. This is an extremely dangerous individual who seems to have developed psionic powers. Clayton tells him that the spec ops team is working on the case.


And indeed they have been; O’Malley, powered by Nutkicker, spent all night trying to develop a program to detect Jones, based on power surges and facial recognition software. If the data is right, it is possible to pinpoint Lance Jones to an underworld quarter, close to Biddonville. The agents answer Reed’s call in a triumphant mood. Clayton sends them out to do some discreet reconnaissance work. The team prepares a van for a trip to the Underworld, a low-income, run-down, low-tech residential area inhabited by poor workers. Eva decides to look for one of her informants, Willy the Squid, a small time crook that lives in the area. After bribing him, Eva is able to squeeze the information out of the Squid. She shows him a photo of Jones, and Willy confirms he has seen him. The guy stands out in the neighbourhood, he doesn’t look the type, plus there are bodyguards with him. Borges presses the crook to show her the building Jones is hiding in, but the little shit walks out on her.

“Luckily” it seems they have parked the van right across the street from Jones’ building, and weren’t as discreet as they thought they were being; maybe it was the Fresh Body Parts Collectors advertised on the side of the van… Just when Borges gets back to the vehicle, three menacing goons come out of the building and walk towards them. While Borges reaches inside the van to get her faithful Hauser Arms assault rifle and Jana picks up her 9mm, focusing on her psionic powers for tactical leverage, O’Malley decides to pop out of the sunroof and fire up his Remminger sub-machine gun, just like a hero in an action vid. Despite barely knowing how to shoot, he manages to fire a clean burst that knocks down one of the thugs and kills him. O’Malley shouts “die, bastard!” sounding a like an excited teenager. Armed with her Hauser rifle, Borges efficiently dispatches the second with a shot to the head. Jana misses her shot, giving the third guy a chance to run for cover before trying – and failing – to shoot O’Malley.

Meanwhile, Jana’s psionic senses made her aware that a new hidden foe has joined the combat zone, through an open window, some floors above them. She nervously lets the others know. Borges is focused on the third man; although he was under cover, his arm was showing, and now it’s bloody gone! However, the sniper hits her on the leg, as retaliation. Borges moves to the sunroof, preparing to cover Jana and Patrick, while they run towards the building. She is able to hit the sniper in the chest, fatally injuring him.

The coast is now clear. O’Malley frantically climbs to the third floor, ignoring Jana’s warnings to take it easy. Giving up on a lost cause – testosterone fuelled Patrick – she tries to sense the apartment where Jones is: in the middle of the third floor hall, she identifies two shapes. Jane is able to get the attention of impatient O’Malley, and points to the right door. Excited, O’Malley runs and kicks the door. Nothing happens. He then remembers he should shoot the lock (better late then never). The door is now wide open, but Patrick feels a strange tingling in his right leg, followed by a shocking pain. He screams. Calmly and steadily, Jana points her 9mm to a perceived shape inside the room, and hits it four times. Getting closer, she recognises the man lying down on the floor as Lance Jones. O’Malley, still excited, although limping, is mighty impressed.

When Borges finally reaches the third floor everything is under control; the rookies are handcuffing the two wounded and unconscious suspects. She calls for backup to collect the corpses and prisoners. Meanwhile, Gibson raises a pertinent question: Jones can be dangerous if he recovers consciousness. Borges pulls out her 9mm and simply says “a shot to the head will solve that!”. Despite protests and shock from the rookies, Lance Jones is swiftly neutralised, ZoneSec style. Borges is proud of her rookies and, after a trip to the infirmary and a debriefing with a surprised and impressed Clayton Reed, she proclaims it’s a night for celebration. Clayton is quick in updating his boss, letting Aziz know that, against all the odds, the rookies took care of Lance Jones and four accomplices. A relieved Aziz calls Doyle to deliver the news: “Malena is now safe!”. The Blue Parrot owner and the singer decide to celebrate with another live performance. This time without special effects…

Meanwhile, Dr Nakatomi receives a disturbing piece of news: James C, the hunky Rollerclash star, was caught by Pandemonium Inc. security brutally beating up the company’s CEO, and has been detained by ZoneSec. This upsets whatever plans she was starting to have for James. Concerned, she calls Aziz, who promises to take a close look into the matter. Aziz has a one-on-one with James, who admits his guilt, but claims he was just trying to interrogate Houseman to get to the end of the matter behind the Rollerclash deadly accidents.

Later that night, the Blue Parrot is once again filled to the brim. Malena sings, accompanied by Doyle on the piano. The singer attracts a different crowd: tonight the Parrot is full of young people. One group seems particularly excited and, suddenly, there’s is a commotion on their corner of the room. Doyle, who had left the stage some minutes before to greet Aziz and Isabella, quickly jumps up to see what the hell is happening in his bar. A young Asian kid has collapsed on the floor. Nakatomi examines him. He’s gone and it was clearly an overdose. Doyle is beside himself: people don´t normally OD at the Parrot, it’s just not that kind of bar! He pushes the punk’s friends around and they confess he took a new drug: Dark Dancer, the hot fashionable narcotic on the streets of Avalidad. Crowe is called to intervene and, once again, Malena’s performance at the Blue Parrot ends badly and abruptly.

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Postcards from Avalidad Campaign Setting (SPOILERS) Review pt1

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Red Room: The Year in (P)review

This has been a busy year here at the Red Room, with six books published by Postmortem Studios – Orpheum Lofts, The Memorial, The Sisters of the Seven Sins, Welcome to St. Cloud, Postcards from Avalidad and As Above, So Below -, a few interviews to independent role-playing game designers (Brian Shutter, Gavriel Quiroga, Liam Thompson, Venger Satanis, James ‘Grim’ Desborough and Chris Miller) as well as some other assorted articles, including the one about Giallo in Alarms and Journeys magazine issue 10. And next year may be even busier! Right now I have four new books already written and waiting for layout: the upcoming Postcards Companion an alternative setting location for Postcards from Avalidad and two Double Feature horror scenarios.

The Double Features are intended to emulate the Grindhouse phenomenon of the 1970s in a role-playing framework. There are now four of those short scenarios, prepared to be paired up in two volumes:

Double Feature Vol. 1


Sexual Holocaust: The fictional town of Hammettville, New York, is shaken by a series of gruesome and mysterious murders. The victim are all members of a S&M private club.

Brides of the Vampire: An anthology of plot hooks, set in different time periods, introduced along one character’s story, an old Eastern European vampire.

Double Feature Vol. 2


The Devil’s Country: A story within a story scenario about a movie cast and crew about to shoot a spaghetti western. Players start out as movie industry people, later slipping into their film characters in a western town situated outside our own reality.

Resort of the Dead: A George Romero/ J. G. Ballard crossover about a Zombie Apocalypse set in a formerly luxurious – but now decaying – summer resort in Portugal, during the 1980s.

Cards on the Table (working title): This is a mini-setting for Postcards from Avalidad. It adds the city of Lisbon, Portugal’s capital, to the Avalidad game world. Lisbon of the near-future is a new entry in the infamous list of gambling and vice cities of the world, such as Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Macao, Monaco and Singapore. There are several tie-ins to the original storyline through factions in the core book and plot hooks which require the characters to travel to the Iberian city. There’s also enough information to make Lisbon an alternative location for an Avalidad on-going plot.


Then there’s Nouveaupunk: Chronicles of the Belle Époque, the second campaign setting for James ‘Grim’ Desborough’s retroclone role-playing game *Punk. This one is still unfinished, but it will probably by completed early next year. And what is it about? Well, it takes place in the time period known as Belle Époque, dated between the early 1870s and 1914, at the beginning of World War I. It is neither the right time nor the right mood for Steampunk or Dieselpunk, but it is the era of Art Nouveau, an international style of art and architecture which had particular influence in the decorative arts. As it also uses the *Punk system, we called it Nouveaupunk.


This is where Umberto Eco’s Simone Simonini crosses paths with Jacques Tardi’s Adèle Blanc-Sec, Edgar Allan Poe’s Chevalier Auguste Dupin and Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin, amidst anarchist bombings, the echoes of the Dreyfus affair, the catastrophic side effects of secrets societies conspiring in the shadows and the mysterious results of experiences conducted by mad geniuses. Not quite pulp, not quite historical… but Nouveaupunk. Among the main inspirations for Chronicles of the Belle Époque there’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, a series of mildly Lovecraftian French graphic novels of the 1970s, by Jacques Tardi (also the 2010 movie adaptation by Luc Besson), Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetery (2010) and Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt and The Purloined Letter, featuring gentleman detective Auguste Dupin.

And there are still other plans… After finishing Chronicles of the Belle Époque I’ll move to an Atompunk setting, partly inspired by Grim Jim’s wonderfully insane ’45 – Psychobilly Retropocalypse. Already on the works is a dark, low-fantasy, high-debauchery campaign setting co-written by myself and Sílvia Clemente. Other partnerships may happen in the future, but that obviously relies on other people’s availability so I can’t add much about it. I’ve been thinking about a few more projects, but it’s too early to mention them.

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Map of Avalidad (Postcards from Avalidad)


The map of Avalidad will be included in a upcoming sourcebook for Postcards from Avalidad, the Postcards Companion, which will also feature a timeline of events for the near future setting, optional rules* for Psionics, a more detailed city guide, information about other corporations of note, a list of equipment and a table of random encounters using cards, among other things.

*All the optional rules are meant for *Punk, the preferred set of mechanics for Postcards from Avalidad (though it includes statistics for Actual Fucking Monsters as well).

map-of-avalidadDownload
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Rollerclash Teams (Postcards from Avalidad)

The idea of organising a Rollerclash competition was Dr Bentley’s, when he took over his office, as a way to further distract the workers on weekend nights. A kind of violent entertainment that is contained inside a sports venue and doesn’t flow over into the streets, as sometimes happens with Deathfight and Mutant Mayhem. That’s the reason why he decided to base it on Rollerball, a science fiction movie classic from the 1970s. Each Rollerclash team is sponsored by a different corporation. These are the teams currently playing in Avalidad by order of relevance:

Brutal Deluxe (BurroughsTech)
Underworld Blasters (Annexia Corp)
Rage Lords (Bergen Group)
Neon Rage (Nakajima)
Gods of War (Kobayashi)
Turbo Rangers (Matsui)
Sword of Damocles (War Inc)
Death or Glory (Hauser Corp)
Meat Massacre (Skyswitch Corporation)
Fatal Furies (Uncle Bill’s Guns)
Sexy Slashers (Martinelli)
Mean Machines (SecuriTech)

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Postcards from Avalidad Season #1 Episode #3

“And who by fire, who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?”

Leonard Cohen, Who by Fire


After doing some leg work, talking to the people at both the Iridum arena and the smaller venue where Malena acted recently, Doyle finds himself in need of help, he has now in his hands hours of surveillance recordings and no idea what do do with them. The stalker is still at large and he has no clues. Doyle arranges a meeting with Aziz Crowe in his office and puts him up to speed. Meanwhile, Isabella is having tea with her friend and is already aware of the troubles affecting the singer Malena, as well as her past story with Doyle. Isabella suggests ZoneSec should get involved and calls Aziz. She agrees to meet Doyle and Crowe at ZoneSec HQ.

Malena, lead singer of the Electro-Candombe band Malena y los Rio de la Plata

The three friends meet at the office over coffee, absinthe and a strange canned soft drink that a weird ginger kid has just handed to Doyle in the corridor. Being a scientist Nakatomi tries the drink and, after a energy burst, wonders about its contents and commercial possibilities.

Aziz asks his customized Personal Assistant, Natasha, do examine the surveillance recordings, while Doyle recaps the story and Nakatomi walks up and down the office. Aziz believes the crowded Hilton Hotel is not a safe enough place for Malena to seek refuge. She should be somewhere quieter and easier to control, like the Blue Parrot. Strangely both ex-lovers agree to the idea. A cunning plan is born: Malena will perform at the Blue Parrot to attract the pyromaniac stalker. ZoneSec can control the access to the bar and apprehend the criminal.

James C, star player of Brutal Deluxe Rollerclash team

Suddenly there is an unexpected visit: James C, the most famous Rollerclash player is insisting in talking to ZoneSec’s director right away. James, star player of the BurroughsTech sponsored team, Brutal Deluxe – is clearly disturbed: a teammate of his, Ironhead, died during a recent match. Though dying isn’t unusual for a Rollerclash game, James C is convinced it was a planned killing, the other player – bike driver Cletus Gunn of the Underworld Blasters – was clearly targeting Iron head during the whole match. James C claims he and the late Iron Head were being pressured by Pandemonium – the company that organizes the games – to retire. They had become big a starts, bigger then the game itself, and the corporate suits didn’t want that. Rollerclash shouldn’t generate idols for the masses. Aziz promises to investigate the case, while Nakatomi tries to set up a date with James C.

Back at the Blue Parrot, Isabella does a live RealSimcast with Malena to announce the concert for the next day to all her followers, making sure the news is widespread.

While they are doing the live, Natasha calls Aziz apart. She finally has news for him: a face was identified in the crowd at on of the concert, Lance Jones, a scientist that was jailed for stalking and trying to rape Ka’athryn years before. A worried Aziz calls a ZoneSec team to be on the scene immediately and Jones’ mugshot is distributed to both Blue Parrot and ZoneSec security.

It’s late, Borges is getting ready to go home when she gets a call from Clayton Reed. She and the rookies were just assigned to a security detail at the Blue Parrot to protect lead singer Malena. The team sets up a surveillance perimeter outside of the Blue Parrot, after a small territorial fight with the Blue Parrot bouncer about installing cameras inside the bar. 

On concert night the Blue Parrot is at its maximum capacity, everybody wants to see Malena. In spite of all the security efforts everything goes wrong! Suddenly an explosion occurs inside the bar. Doyle quickly drags Malena out of the stage and into his room, while Aziz helps evacuate the place, and Nakatomi keeps her exciting live stream going.

Outside, the security team quickly jumps out of the surveillance van, dejected by the fact O’Malley’s face detector program proved useless. Borges quickly races to the Blue Parrot and puts out the fire in the kitchen. She is pissed of with how the amateurs handled the situation. O’Malley’s inspection of the fire zone shows nothing, there is no explanation for the explosion.

Lance Jones was arrested years ago for trying to rape Ka’athryn

They decide to check Lance Jones background, but find nothing in official channels: classified information. Being the proactive young man he is, O’Malley goes straight to the director for information. Aziz tells the team that maybe Lance Jones can start fires from a distance using biotechnology. Borges gets even more pissed off. 

O´Malley tries to find the suspect by hacking the street cameras around the area. But there’s a weird pattern of cameras getting shut dow and  he ends up missing the trail. At least now they know what building he came of from, so it’s time to go knocking on doors. On the 4th floor there’s a flat where nobody is answering. O’Malley tries to kick the door down, but ends up hurting himself. Borges shows him how to do it: “We shoot the door!”.

Inside they find a recently carbonized body. Time to call the clean-up team. The apartment has a view over the Blue Parrot’s kitchen; Jones probably needed to see the place to do whatever he did… O’Malley dives into the darkweb and find out they may have found themselves a psycho scientist with a psionic power to start fires. Borges is furious and calls Clayton Reed to let him know of the night’s mess and the fact the director retained information. After another call from Reed Aziz finally shares the full information with the team.

Now they have the full picture maybe they can catch him next time.

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Postcards From Avalidad Season #1 Episode #2

“Time moves in one direction, memory in another”

William Gibson


The Turkey

Aziz Crowe arrives home at about 5 a.m., but before he lays down besides Ka’athryn, he checks for forensic updates on the murder’s at Bentley’s mansion. Barbaroux’s DNA was found under one of the models’ fingernails, but the fabric belongs to one Sir Nigel Smythe, a retired British expat who runs the local Hellfire Club. Crowe has a premonition that Barbaroux is already dead and sends Zone Sec to find Smythe.

After finally going to sleep he has one of those strange psychic dreams: Aziz is inside an oven, alongside a roasting turkey. The headless turkey screams at him, with an outrageous accent French “Help me! You bastard!”. The dream lingers in his mind and once he awakens in the morning the first thing he does is to gaze from the window of his Olympian Tower penthouse and focus on the memory of the turkey. Unexpectedly his intuition points to the suburbs. Precisely to Dr Bentley’s Mansion!

Veronica, the Baboon


Crowe calls Michael Doyle asking his company to visit Dr. Bentley once again. He doesn’t want to call ZoneSec in just yet. He also asks a distracted Ka’athryn to call Isabella about a turkey Dr Bentley has in the oven. Isabella is delighted with the unexpected lunch invitation from William, and makes haste. Leaving the hotel she founds a very clearly disturbed Malena, but alas William is wanting.

While the trio is once again together Malena’s (Electronic Candombe star and Isabella and Ka’athryn’s friend) return is casually mentioned. This appears to deeply disturb Doyle. They had relationship way back when she was nobody.

They find Dr Bentley in his mansion lounging by the pool in Veronica’s company. Doyle insists in searching inside the Orgone Acumulator, an unfruitful venture, while the turkey is cooked for a late lunch.

But Doyle is a stubborn gentleman and, after inspecting the murder scene one more time with Aziz’s help, he notices an unscrewed ventilation grid. The muck from the Orgone Accumulator makes it that much easier for Doyle to slide inside the crawlspace. After some twists and turns, the corpse of Jean Paul Barbaroux is found. That kinda ruined lunch plans!

Back at ZoneSec, Aziz is able to revive the last visions of the dead women and the designer. The visions  point to the French designer being the killer, but something in Crowe’s gut makes him suspect Sir Nigel is involved somehow.

During the afternoon Isabella decides to drop by Babar’s Atelier to give his assistant Louise the sorrowful news. After drinking a couple of bottles of champagne to celebrate the life and death of Jean Paul Barbaroux – and Louise’s glorious new career – Isabella moves to the designer’s office to do a quick search. She finds some highly incriminating photos and a jacket belonging to Smythe with a matching missing pocket. She calls Crowe to tell him about the evidence and then focus her attention in trying the dresses Babar left behind. The late designer’s last work will be hotter then a roasted turkey.

Meanwhile Doyle arrives at the Blue Parrot to find a familiar scent in the air: Malena has returned searching for his help.She tells him about the weird events that happened during her latest shows. She may have a pyromaniac stalker for a fan. When Doyle asks why come for him, her answer is: “You are the only one I now I can trust!”


ZoneSec Blues

The team has assembled for the morning briefing. The task on hand is still Kurt Kilgore’s smear campaign. Patrick O’Maley, well-caffeinated, prepares to set up his plan. The boy’s innate talent for hacking catches Borges’ eye.

While Jana entertains the reporters with an improvised press-conference, Borges persuades Kilgore to step down by threatening to leak the fake compromising stories planted by O’Maley. It would be better for all if Kurt just gave up politics; and he does.

The team decides to keep an eye on Democracy Now! They make a short list of the next possible leaders to be ready to neutralise them.

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Postcards from Avalidad: As Above so Below (SPOILERS) review

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Giallo: The Sisters of the Seven Sins (SPOILERS) review

Abraham Zetina has reviewed the third and last Postmortem Giallo: The Sisters of the Seven Sins for his YouTube channel, Talking About Games. You can check it out here. You can also check his previews reviews for the other gialli here.

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Postcards from Avalidad – Character Sheet

A *Punk character sheet for the Postcards from Avalidad tech-noir/ surreal horror game setting. There will be new (optional) PSI rules for the game, so this is still a beta version.

postcards-character-sheetDownload